Why The Middle East Doesn't Work

A good way to find out what's wrong with the economies of the Middle East is to go to Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center. There you'll find plenty of Middle Easterners who planted their entrepreneurial seeds in turf a lot more fertile than that found back home. One such is Magued (Mike) Nour, president of AmericaTrans Overseas Shipping on Summit Avenue. A forthright Egyptian with the confidence of a sea captain, he declares that economies in the Middle East are only as good as the cost of doing business there. Those company costs are much higher than in the U.S., he says, waving his Turkish cigarette above the shipping manifests in Arabic in his office.

The problem is that Islam frowns on democracy and genuine capitalism. There are a few stock exchanges in the ME, but they don't seem to be headline grabbers.

However, if you go to the ME, the Arab merchants there haggle for everything. So money and trade is important. But this haggling is not a sophisticated form of free markets.

For better or worse, I think America, Europe and Asia will leave ME and much of Africa in the Dark Ages very soon.

Good post.

When governments in the Middle East talk about nation-building, they should be talking about market-building. Markets are the main tool of economic empowerment for the disenfranchised whose numbers are growing at an extremely rapid rate," says Glenn Yago of the Milken Institute, a think-tank near Los Angeles that has paid particular attention to the Middle East.

However, the reality is the viewpoint expressed below from another thread taken from an Islamic website:

The US would never tolerate to have any Muslim country strong and prosperous because the US does not trust Muslim countries. US have betrayed Muslim countries many times and Muslims do not see the US as an honest and sincere friend. US policy makers see Islam as a threat. Therefore, it is in the interest of US to see Muslim countries remain engaged in wars or facing economic depressions

This is the reality: self-pity and paranoia. It's not going to change very easily.

Real world evidence proves overwhelmingly that countries that have strong protections of private property rights, individual liberty, freedom of contract, free market pricing, and free trade, will become rich, and that countries that don't have these polices will remain poor. That's why Muslims who live in the Middle East are poor, while Muslims who live in the U.S. are so much better off.

The Heritage Foundation/Wall St. Journal's annual "Index of Economic Freedom" is one of the best sources for information on why some countries are so rich while other countries are so poor.

Hong Kong was very poor just a few decades ago. But thanks to its economic policies, it became very wealthy very quickly. It went from third world status to first world status in just a few decades. If the Middle East would adopt these same policies, then it would become rich, too.

In the days following Sep. 11--some Islamic spokespersons advised the US to consider the cause of the "unrest" which gives rise to terrorism. Of course this was rejected, because it sounded like an attempt to justify the terrorism.

Ironically, however, it is sound advice. As we learn more about those countries, we find largely poor people, living under actual or near dictatorships, with a small, very rich upper class.

Those governments are only too happy to scapegoat America and Israel, for it plays to the masses. Those masses aren't very sophisticated, when it comes to learning the truth. If found, the truth is repressed, by state and church dominated press/media, by religious only education, by harsh police and military rule, etc.

The little guy finds an outlet, for his frustration, with radical Islam. Saudi Arabia has exported its malcontents, gladly, so as to remove the internal threat. In Egypt they put them in cages, in the courts.

The only "revolutions" have gone the direction of Islamic republics. The chances for a western style, democratically elected government are slim to none. If elections took place, they would probably elect radical Islam, after decades of brainwashing, illiteracy, etc.

So the prospects of getting what is best for the little guy--an efficient market economy, secular, constitutional democracy and the personal/economic freedom and benefits are virtually out of the question.

America supports the Saudi royals, because the alternative might be, probably is worse, for the US. The royals are as close to an ally, as we can get.

It is different with each country. For self defense, our short/medium range foreign policy must be to put the hammer down with each government, to control, repress and destroy the terrorist element. In the long range, our best interest is for them to become participants in free markets, freedoms, if (and that is a big IF) they have the ability, under Islam in any form.

I agree with everything you say until the last sentence clause. If you read this whole article, it tells how Islam in the Middle East was completely into free trade in the past. This is the Islam of Sinbad, Scheherezade, Aladdin and the Merchant Of Levant Whose Word Could Always Be Trusted. It sure as heck wasn't the crummy Islam of the taleban. Gus Dur of Indonesia, who is the leader of the largest Islamic group in the world, said he was always struck by the POVERTY of the Islamic purist regimes and Indonesians really could not stand poverty, being Asians and all. Mohammed himself was a trader, and all his pals were too. Islam was the richest part of the world when free trade was practiced. The crusaders came over because they were fascinated by all the prosperity. Yes, Islam with all its canny rug merchants, can indeed become capitalist. We would have a run for our money if they ever did that, as they are quite good at it.

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